When the campaign in the Near East is settled one way or the other, and the situation is in some way stabilized, I shall discontinue this diary. It covers the period between Hitler's spring campaigns of 1940 and 1941. Some time within the next month or two a new military and political phase must begin. The first six months of this diary covered the quasi-revolutionary period following on the disaster in France. Now we are evidently in for another period of disaster, but of a different kind, less intelligible to ordinary people and not necessarily producing any corresponding political improvement. Looking back to the early part of this diary, I see how my political predictions have been falsified, and yet, as it were, the revolutionary changes that I expected are happening, but in slow motion. I made an entry, I see, implying that private advertisements would have disappeared from the walls within a year. They haven't, of course -- that disgusting Cough Syrup advert is still plastered all over the place, also He's Twice the Man on Worthington and Somebody's Mother isn't Using Persil -- but they are far fewer, and the government posters far more numerous. Connolly said once that intellectuals tend to be right about the direction of events but wrong about their tempo, which is very true.
Registering on Saturday, with the 38 group, I was appalled to see what a scrubby-looking lot they were. A thing that strikes one when one sees a group like this, picked out simply by date of birth, is how much more rapidly the working classes age. They don't, however, live less long, or only a few years less long, than the middle class. But they have an enormous middle age, stretching from thirty to sixty.
14 April
The news today is appalling. The Germans are at the Egyptian frontier and a British force in Tobruk has the appearance of being cut off, though this is denied from Cairo. Opinion is divided as to whether the Germans really have an overwhelming army in Libya, or whether they have only a comparatively small force while we have practically nothing, most of the troops and fighting vehicles having been withdrawn to other fronts as soon as we had taken Benghazi. In my opinion the latter is the likelier, and also the probability is that we sent only European troops to Greece and have chiefly Indians and Negroes in Egypt. D., speaking from a knowledge of South Africa, thinks that after Benghazi was taken the army was removed not so much for use in Greece as to polish off the Abyssinian campaign, and that the motive for this was political, to give the South Africans, who are more or less hostile to us, a victory to keep them in a good temper. If we can hang on to Egypt the whole thing will have been worth while for the sake of clearing the Red Sea and opening that route to American ships. But the necessary complement to this is the French West African ports, which we could have seized a year ago almost without fighting.
Non-aggression pact between Russia and Japan, the published terms of which are vague in the extreme. But there must presumably be a secret clause by which Russia agrees to abandon China, no doubt gradually and without admitting what is happening, as in the case of Spain. Otherwise it is difficult to see what meaning the pact can have.
From Greece no real news whatever. One silly story about a British armoured-car patrol surprising a party of Germans has now been repeated three days running.
15 April
Last night went to the pub to listen to the 9 o'clock news, and arriving there a few minutes late, asked the landlady what the news had been. "Oh, we never turn it on. Nobody listens to it, you see. And they've got the piano playing in the other bar, and they won't turn it off just for the news." This at a moment when there is a most deadly threat to the Suez canal. Cf. during the worst moment of the Dunkirk campaign, when the barmaid would not have turned on the news unless I had asked her. . . . . Cf. also the time in 1936 when the Germans reoccupied the Rhineland. I was in Barnsley at the time. I went into a pub just after the news had come through and remarked at random, "The German army has crossed the Rhine." With a vague air of remembering something, someone murmured "Parley-voo." No more response than that. . . . . So also at every moment of crisis from 1931 onwards. You have all the time the sensation of kicking against an impenetrable wall of stupidity. But of course at times their stupidity has stood them in good stead. Any European nation situated as we are would have been squealing for peace long ago.
17 April
Very heavy raid last night, probably the heaviest in many months, so far as London is concerned. . . . . Bomb in Lord's cricket ground (schoolboys having their exercise at the nets as usual this morning, a few yards from the crater) and another in St John's Wood churchyard. This one luckily didn't land among the graves, a thing I have been dreading will happen. . . . . Passed this morning a side-street somewhere in Hampstead with one house in it reduced to a pile of rubbish by a bomb -- a sight so usual that one hardly notices it. The street is cordoned off, however, digging squads at work, and a line of ambulances waiting. Underneath that huge pile of bricks there are mangled bodies, some of them perhaps alive.
The guns kept up their racket nearly all night. . . . . Today I can find no one who admits to having slept last night, and E. says the same. The formula is: "I never closed my eyes for an instant." I believe this is all nonsense. Certainly it is hard to sleep in such a din, but E. and I must have slept quite half the night.
22 April
Have been 2 or 3 days at Wallington. Saturday night's blitz could easily be heard there -- 45 miles distant.
Sowed while at Wallington 40 or 50 lb. of potatoes, which might give 200 to 600 lb. according to the season, etc. It would be queer -- I hope it won't be so, but it quite well may -- if, when this autumn comes, those potatoes seem a more important achievement than all the articles, broadcasts, etc. I shall have done this year.
The Greek-British line seems to have swung south, hinging on Janina, to a position not far north of Athens. If the newspaper reports are truthful, they got across the plain of Thessaly without being too much damaged. The thing that disturbs everyone and is evidently going to raise a storm in Australia, is the lack of real news. Churchill in his speech said that even the Government had difficulty in getting news from Greece. The thing that most disturbs me is the repeated statement that we are inflicting enormous casualties, the Germans advance in close formation and are mown down in swathes, etc. etc. Just the same as was said during the battle of France. . . . . Attack on Gibraltar, or at any rate some adverse move in Spain, evidently timed to happen soon. Churchill's speeches begin to sound like Chamberlain's -- evading questions, etc. etc.
British troops entered Iraq a couple of days ago. No news yet as to whether they are doing the proper thing, wiping up German agents, etc. People on all sides saying, "Mosul will be no good to Hitler even if he gets there. The British will blow up the wells long before." Will they, I wonder? Did they blow up the Rumanian wells when the opportunity existed? The most depressing thing in this war is not the disasters we are bound to suffer at this stage, but the knowledge that we are being led by weaklings. . . . . It is as though your life depended on a game of chess, and you had to sit watching it, seeing the most idiotic moves being made and being powerless to prevent them.
23 April
The Greeks appear to be packing up. Evidently there is going to be hell to pay in Australia. So long as it merely leads to an inquest on the Greek campaign, and a general row in which the position of Australia in the Empire will be defined and perhaps the conduct of the war democratized somewhat, this is all to the good.
24 April
No definite news from Greece. All one knows is that a Greek army, or part of a Greek army, or possibly the whole Greek army, has capitulated. No indication as to how many men we have there, what sort of position they are left in, whether it will be possible to hang on, and if so, where, etc. etc. Hints thrown out in the Daily Express suggest that we have practically no aeroplanes there. Armistice terms drawn up by the Italians evidently aim at later using Greek prisoners as hostages, with a view to blackmailing the British into giving up Crete and other islands.
No indication of the Russian attitude. The Germans are
now close to the Dardanelles and attack on Turkey evidently imminent. The Russians will then have to decide definitely whether to make a stand against Germany, put pressure on Turkey not to resist and perhaps get Iran as the price of this, or sit still and watch the whole southern shore of the Black Sea pass into German hands. In my opinion they will do the second, or less probably the third, in either case with public orgies of self-righteousness.
25 April
C., of my section of the Home Guard, a poulterer by trade but at present dealing in meat of all kinds, yesterday bought 20 zebras which are being sold off by the Zoo. Only for dog meat, presumably, not human consumption. It seems rather a waste. . . . . There are said to be still 2,000 race-horses in England, each of which will be eating 10-15 lb. of grain a day, i.e. these brutes are devouring every day the equivalent of the bread ration of a division of troops.
28 April
Churchill's speech last night very good, as a speech. But impossible to dig any information out of it. The sole solid fact I could extract was that at the time of his offensive in Libya Wavell could never concentrate more than 2 divisions, say 30,000 men. Heard the speech at the Home Guard post. The men impressed by it, in fact moved. But I think only two of the ones there were men below the PS5 a week level. Churchill's oratory is really good, in an old-fashioned way, though I don't like his delivery. What a pity that he either can't, or doesn't want, or isn't allowed, ever to say anything definite!
2 May
A man came from -----'s yesterday morning to cut out the cover for our armchair. The usual draper type, smallish, neat, with something feminine about him and nests of pins all over his person. He informed me that this was the only domestic job he was doing today. Nearly all the time he is cutting out covers for guns, which it seems have to be made in the same way as chair covers. -----'s are keeping going largely on this, he said.
3 May
The number evacuated from Greece is now estimated at 41-43,000, but it is stated that we had less men there than had been supposed, probably about 55,000. Casualties supposed to be 3,000, and prisoners presumably 7 or 8 thousand, which would tally with the German figures. 8,000 vehicles said to have been lost, I suppose vehicles of all kinds. No mention of ships lost, though they must have lost some. Spender, one of the Australian ministers, states publicly that "rifles are as useless against tanks as bows and arrows". That at any rate is a step forward. Apparently there is what amounts to war in Iraq. At the very best this is a disaster. . . . . In all probability we shan't even deal properly with the so-called army of Iraq, which could no doubt be bombed to pieces in a few hours. Either some sort of agreement will be signed in which we shall give away everything and leave the stage set for the same thing to happen again; or you will hear that the Iraq Government is in control of the oil wells, but this doesn't matter, as they have agreed to give us all necessary facilities, etc. etc., and then presently you will hear that German experts are arriving by plane or via Turkey; or we shall stand on the defensive and do nothing until the Germans have managed to transport an army by air, when we shall fight at a disadvantage. Whenever you contemplate the British Government's policy, and this has been true without a single break since 1931, you have the same feeling as when pressing on the accelerator of a car that is only firing on one cylinder, a feeling of deadly weakness. One doesn't know in advance exactly what they will do, but one does know that in no case can they possibly succeed, or possibly act before it is too late. . . . . It is curious how comparatively confident one feels when it is a question of mere fighting, and how helpless when it is a question of strategy or diplomacy. One knows in advance that the strategy of a British Conservative Government must fail, because the will to make it succeed is not there. Their scruples about attacking neutrals -- and that is the chief strategic difference between us and Germany in the present war -- are merely the sign of a subconscious desire to fail. People don't have scruples when they are fighting for a cause they believe in.
6 May
The Turks have offered to mediate in Iraq, probably a bad sign. Mobilization in Iran. The American Government stops shipments of war materials to the U.S.S.R., a good thing in itself but probably another bad sign.
Astonishing sights in the Tube stations when one goes through late at night. What is most striking is the cleanly, normal, domesticated air that everything now has. Especially the young married couples, the sort of homely cautious types that would probably be buying their houses from a building society, tucked up together under pink conterpanes. And the large families one sees here and there, father, mother and several children all laid out in a row like rabbits on the slab. They all seem so peacefully asleep in the bright lamplight. The children lying on their backs, with their little pink cheeks like wax dolls, and all fast asleep.
11 May
The most important news of the last few days, which was tucked away on a back page of the newspapers, was the Russian announcement that they could not any longer recognize the governments of Norway and Belgium. Ditto with Jugoslavia, according to yesterday's papers. This is the first diplomatic move since Stalin made himself premier, and amounts to an announcement that Russia will now acquiesce in any act of aggression whatever. It must have been done under German pressure, and coming together with Molotov's removal must indicate a definite orientation of Russian policy on the German side, which needs Stalin's personal authority to enforce it. Before long they must make some hostile move against Turkey or Iran, or both,
Heavy air raid last night. A bomb slightly damaged this building, the first time this has happened to any house I have been in. About 2 a.m. in the middle of the usual gunfire and distant bombs, a devastating crash, which woke us up but did not break the windows or noticeably shake the room. E. got up and went to the window, where she heard someone shouting that it was this house that had been hit. A little later we went out into the passage and found much smoke and a smell of burning rubber. Going up on the roof, saw enormous fires at most points of the compass, one over to the west, several miles away, with huge leaping flames, which must have been a warehouse full of some inflammable material. Smoke was drifting over the roof, but we finally decided that it was not this block of flats that had been hit. Going downstairs again we were told that it was this block, but that everyone was to stay in his flat. By this time the smoke was thick enough to make it difficult to see down the passage. Presently we heard shouts of "Yes! Yes! There's still someone in Number 111!" and the wardens shouting to us to get out. We slipped on some clothes, grabbed up a few things and went out, at this time imagining that the house might be seriously on fire and it might be impossible to get back. At such times one takes what one feels to be important, and I noticed afterwards that what I had taken was not my typewriter or any documents but my firearms and a haversack containing food etc., which was always kept ready. Actually all that had happened was that the bomb had set fire to the garage and burned out the cars that were in it. We went in to the D.s, who gave us tea, and ate a slab of chocolate we had been saving for months. Later I remarked on E.'s blackened face, and she said "What do you think your own is like?" I looked in the glass and saw that my face was quite black. It had not occurred to me till then that this would be so.
13 May
I have absolutely no theory about the reason for Hess's65 arrival. It is completely mysterious. The one thing I know is that if a possibility exists of missing this propaganda opportunity, the British government will find it.
65. Rudolf Hess (1894- ), German Nazi, second to Goering as Hitler's successor, flew to Scotland on 10 May 1941, allegedly bearing peace proposals to be delivered to the Duke of Hamilton. He was interned in Britain and sentenced to life imprisonment by the international war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946.
18 May
Iraq, Syria, Morocco, Spain, Darlan, Stalin, Raschid Ali, Franco -- sensation of utter helplessness. If there is a wrong thing to do, it will be done, infallibly. One has come to believe in that as if it were a law of nature
.
Yesterday or the day before on the newspaper placards, "Nazis using Syrian air bases", and reports in the paper that when this fact was announced in Parliament there were cries of "Shame!" Apparently there are people capable of being surprised when the armistice terms are broken and the French empire made use of by the Nazis. And yet any mere outsider like myself could see on the day France went out of the war that this would happen.
Evidently all chance of winning the war in any decent way is lost. The plan of Churchill and Co. is apparently to give everything away and then win it all back with American aeroplanes and rivers of blood. Of course they can't succeed. The whole world would swing against them, America probably included. Within two years we shall either be conquered or we shall be a Socialist republic fighting for its life, with a secret police force and half the population starving. The British ruling class condemned themselves to death when they failed to walk into Dakar, the Canaries, Tangier and Syria while the opportunity existed.
21 May
All eyes on Crete. Everyone saying the same thing -- that this will demonstrate one way or the other the possibility of invading England. This might be so if we were told the one relevant fact, i.e. how many men we have there, and how equipped. If we have only 10-20,000 men, and those infantry, the Germans may overwhelm them with mere numbers, even if unable to land tanks etc. On balance, the circumstances in Crete are much more favourable to the Germans than they could be in England. In so far as the attack on Crete is a try-out, it is much more likely to be a try-out for the attack on Gibraltar.
A Collection of Essays Page 50
